Overview
This seminar revolves around Place Out Of Time (POOT), a web-based character-playing
simulation involving college, high school, and middle school students. You will have a
dual role in the simulation: you will play a character yourself, and you will also act as a
project leader and mentor to the younger participants.

POOT is run in cooperation with the Center for Middle Eastern and North African
Studies and the School of Education at UM-Flint. The core of the simulation is anchored
in the years 711 through 1492 and the cultures in and around what was known as Muslim
Spain, or “al-andalus.” However, the simulation draws from all periods of history and all
world cultures. The simulation revolves around a trial - different each time the simulation
is run -- based on events and people from history. (Our trial this term will focus on the
Austrian law that forbids the denial or the down-playing of the significance of the
Holocaust, and takes up the story of Englishman David Irving, whose conviction under
the “Verbotsgesetz” law was just upheld under appeal). While the details are everchanging,
timeless and universal themes, such as "identity," "freedom," and "security,"
are the backdrop for POOT.

This class is different because you are responsible not just for your own learning, but for
the learning of younger peers who are depending on you. In order to fulfill that
responsibility, though, you will (collectively) need to understand and articulate a variety
of cultural and historical perspectives, as filtered through the personalities that appear in
the simulation. We have chosen to utilize character-playing simulation for two reasons.
First, we see great value in character playing as an exercise of the imagination. Being
forced to “walk in the shoes” of another, and to consider the ideas and the perspective of
someone from another time or place, can be a powerful catalyst to learning. Secondly,
both you and the student participants will be asked to do this character playing in a taskoriented
way. Mentors and students will learn about their character’s lives, their points of
view, and the societal contexts in which their characters lived. You will then be
presented with a contemporary problem, which you will consider from the perspective of
your character. The idea is to help the students to construct a bridge between historical
times and the present day, to gain a heightened appreciation for other worldviews, and to wrestle with some (hopefully) interesting questions in a way that will deepen our learning
about history…and about ourselves.

It is often said that the best way to learn something is to teach it. To that, one might add
that the next best way to learn something is to play a game with it. This class tries to
combine both of those methods.

Syllabi are available to current LSA students. IMPORTANT: These syllabi are provided to give students a general idea about the courses, as offered by LSA departments and programs in prior academic terms. The syllabi do not necessarily reflect the assignments, sequence of course materials, and/or course expectations that the faculty and departments/programs have for these same courses in the current and/or future terms.

No Syllabi are on file for MENAS 591. Click the button below to search for a different syllabus (UM login required)